The fast pace of change in Italian politics has left many observers outside the country struggling to catch up. This collection offers a quick overview in bullet points with links to recent articles I have written in case you have interest in learning more. I am going to list the material in reverse chronological order. Most people want to know what is happening and then figure out why. If you are one of those people who works the other way around, I advise you to follow the links from the bottom up.

When we first put together our collection of scholarship on populism for free access, we hoped to help researchers connect the scholarship we have published to current elections and other major political developments. You can read our original introduction here. Our focus was on the upcoming calendar and on recent events. Nevertheless, we believe the strength of scholarship lies in exploring underlying trends and long-term causal mechanisms. We still think ‘populism’ has immense political salience. Nevertheless, we would argue that the longer-term trends are equally deserving of our attention.

None of what we are facing now is new or (wholly) unexpected. Of course everyone hoped this set of problems would pass and believed that politicians would do their utmost to make matters better. But no-one ever completely discounted the possibility that Europe would fall back into crisis.